In the Issue

• Ask the Expert: Media Coverage of Terrorism
• Principled Multilateralism: The Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization
• Winter 2007 Courier Now Available
• Race to White House Knows No Borders
• Evolving China-India Relations

Features

Ask the Expert: Media Coverage of Terrorism. As a part of our recent reader survey, we asked for your questions about foreign policy issues.  One reader asked why the mainstream media doesn't cover security issues like the broader sources and motivations for terrorism and how you can get them to give these issues more coverage.  Keith Porter, Stanley Foundation director of Communication and Outreach responds. Look for other reader questions in upcoming editions of think.

Principled Multilateralism: The Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization. Over its rocky ten-year existence, the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization (KEDO) produced both failures and successes. Stanley Foundation Program Officer Michael Schiffer examines how a KEDO-like organization could work again if the Six-Party talks conclude with the desired outcome of dismantling North Korea's nuclear weapons program. This is the fifth in a series of articles written by foundation staff that examines the cases where principled multilateralism has been successful.

Winter 2007 Courier Now Available. Read about a dozen top editors from American media outlets touring the Korean peninsula as part of the Stanley Foundation's second collaboration with the International Reporting Project at Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies. This latest Courier also includes a preview of the foundation's new effort to rethink US nuclear policy. Plus in this issue: a call for action in Burma; a look at democracy promotion in US foreign policy; and the debut of our new book, Bridging the Foreign Policy Divide. Read the full issue in HTML or PDF.

Beyond the Headlines

Race to White House Knows No Borders. What happens when the race for the first truly open seat for US president in recent history meets the information age in a globalizing world? Aside from campaign text messages, personalized phone calls from candidates, and Internet pop-ups vying for campaign contributions, it means that people all over the world are tuning in, too.

It may not be news that America's legitimacy in the international community has been tarnished. But this notion has echoed beyond the halls of the foreign policy community and has landed in stump speeches of the 2008 presidential candidates, Republican and Democrat. And with the international community paying close attention to this increasingly tight race for the presidential nomination, some have hurried to find the candidate that they think will restore America's role in the world, while others suggest that whoever is elected will make no difference in the overall direction of US foreign policy.

With the increasing acknowledgment that US and global security are inextricably tied together given the challenges that face all nations, the heightened international attention may come as no surprise. Still, the extent to which the nominating process is being discussed highlights the pinnacle of opportunity at which America finds itself. From the international media’s thoroughness in explaining the mystique of a complex delegate apportioning system to claims that foreigners should cast ballots, the chatter from abroad yields the question: will Americans take into consideration what the rest of the world is looking for in the next US leader? With the number of candidates dwindling and yet a long road until November, the world will have to stay tuned.

Evolving China-India Relations. Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh traveled to Beijing on a three-day visit last month to discuss evolving relations between his country and China. Despite a shared destiny in the changing global order, the relationship between the two nations is often tense. While their economic exchange has doubled in the past two years, India remains wary of China's growing military capacity. As India attempts to shift its burgeoning economy into manufacturing, China is pushing its workforce into high-tech and service industries—sections of the global economy India traditionally dominates.

Yet, negotiations continue. Indeed, the current $37 billion bilateral partnership is recognized by economists as a mere fraction of the financial return possible if the two countries were to truly open their markets to each other, a trade relation they hope to expand to $40 billion by 2010. China has also agreed to back India's request for a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council. The two leaders discussed impending water crisis and climate change issues resulting from rapid industrialization in both nations. Impediments are many. But the potential returns are high enough to warrant an effort on both sides of the Himalayas. China-India relations have now "transcended a bilateral partnership," Singh said. "They are now of global and strategic importance."